Simply Energy Virtual Power Plant (VPP)

Summary

Simply Energy’s virtual power plant project will deliver up to 1200 Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries to Adelaide households.

This represents 6 MW of residential energy storage, while a further 2 MW of demand response capacity will be deployed across 10 commercial businesses.

How the project works

A virtual power plant is a centrally managed network of energy storage systems installed behind the meter that can be collectively controlled to deliver benefits to households and the local community.

Customers can expect better value from their renewable energy solution and the local network will have more distributed energy resources from which to draw from, which in turn improves reliability, particularly at times of peak demand and system instability.

Area of innovation

The project will develop the GreenSync decentralised energy exchange or “deX” platform to a commercial scale. The innovative deX platform will provide an energy marketplace that changes the way electricity is produced, used, stored and traded.

Benefit

Individual customers will benefit from reduced power costs as they are able to increase the amount of rooftop solar power they consume by storing the solar-generated energy and using it later when they would otherwise be consuming power from the grid. The energy storage systems are also able to provide backup power in the event of an outage.

While it is hard to be specific as everyone’s electricity consumption patterns are different, under this offer, an average customer with a 5kW solar PV system can expect to save about 40% per cent on the cost of a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery and about 20 per cent off their electricity bills.

Read more

• ARENA media release